If Barack Obama were your dad, you would know you shouldn't ask him for help with your government homework, but you’d do it anyway, and he would go on and on and on for so long it would be like the damn State of the Union. You wouldn't be able to escape, so you'd start keeping track of how many times he said "Let me be clear" (15).

Previously by Jasmine Guillory: If Lupita Nyong'o Were Your Girlfriend If Nigella Lawson were your girlfriend, all of your books will be food-stained. If Nigella Lawson were your girlfriend, whenever you said you were too full to eat any more, she would playfully poke your belly and say “But darling! You look like you’re losing weight! You need to keep your strength up!” She’d wink, you’ll sigh, and eat another lemon curd-laden…

If Lupita Nyong’o were your girlfriend, full skirts would make you look like a ballerina. And like a ballerina, every time you entered a room, you would twirl and your skirts would flutter like butterflies are dancing around you.

If Lupita Nyong’o were your girlfriend, your skin would be luminous at all times, like someone rubbed pearls on it every night (someone

Jasmine Guillory's work for The Toast can be found here. Previously in this series: If John Cho Were Your Boyfriend. If Michelle Obama were your girlfriend, she would make you get up and go to the gym with her at 5:30 in the morning every day, but she would stand next to you and lovingly cheer you on the whole time, cheering loudest when you finally managed to do one whole push-up. If Michelle Obama were your girlfriend, you would…

At least once or twice a year I re-read the entire Little House on the Prairie series, along with all of the Betsy-Tacy books, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s entire oeuvre, and all the Noel Streatfeild books I can get my hands on. Some of these books have aged well, and get even better on revisiting (Betsy-Tacy), while others are pure nostalgia reads for me. But the more often I read the Little House books as an…